Tuskegee University (TU) requests an Endowment Grant (RFA MD-02-004) of $2,683,400.00 under the ($21) administrative and funding mechanism to continue building and sustaining research and training capacity. Under this Capacity Building award the overall objective is to use the income from the endowment corpus to strengthen research infrastructure, including a new Ph.D. program in Integrative Biosciences, improve TU's physical plant, purchase equipment for instruction and research, student recruitment and retention, faculty recruitment and retention and to develop instruction delivery systems and information technology. Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other minority institutions are poorly represented in the biomedical and behavioral sciences. Careful analysis of this problem has revealed that the reasons for this under-representation are many and complex. Under-representation has been due to an inadequate level of research and lack of adequate research infrastructure. The facilities at these relatively small institutions often have ill-equipped laboratories, and/or inadequately trained laboratory personnel. Consequently, these universities and colleges have not benefit significantly from research funding. In order to address these limitations, the College of Agriculture, Environmental and Natural Sciences, in partnership with the College of Veterinary Medicine, Nursing and Allied Health propose to implement a Ph.D. program in Integrative Biosciences. This new Division of Integrative Biosciences (DIB) will be created to provide students at Tuskegee University and other underrepresented minority institutions with a readily accessible doctoral program in the disciplines of the natural, environmental and life sciences. The new Ph.D. program will assist in supplying the nation with well-trained African-American and other underrepresented minority scientists to meet the emerging higher educational needs of the nation's colleges and universities, the growing biomedical complex of clinical research facilities, and the nation's governmental and industries needs by expanding or adding programs that effectively overcome educational and financial resource barriers to promote a diverse and strong scientific, technological and engineering workforce for the twenty-first century.